Cadenhead

Another Diageo-owned blending malt, you’ll find this one in the popular J&B blended Scotch. Known for a delicate flavoured distillate, I’m hoping these two independent bottlings will showcase the distillery character without too much cask influence.

Sweet shop notes with esters and fruit. It’s quite unbalanced and fiery, but a great nose on it. I’d say the cask was a tad too active here with the palate starting off well and gradually cranking up the spices further than I’d like on an unpeated malt.

A lot in common with the Cadenhead – fruity Speyside character coming through, but different notes and more depth of flavour and complexity. It still has that rising spice, but it’s not as harsh as the 18 and dies down to reveal more flavours on the finish.

Glen Elgin isn’t a name you hear often in single malt land. It tends to all go into blended whisky. As a relative unknown, you can get these single (or in this case double) cask bottlings at great prices and the liquid is very nice indeed.

I bought a bottle to split with Andy and it really hasn’t disappointed. There’s still some available on Cadenheads at the time of writing so bag a bottle if delicious bourbon cask Scotch is your thing.

Very much following in the footsteps of Ben Cops, here’s three old and delicious Caol Ila bottlings from WM Cadenhead.

I’ve been saving the 30 year old for my 30th birthday and now that the bottle’s open it’s time to revisit last year’s 29 year old and get stuck into a taster of this year’s 31 year old release (again, thank you to Mr Cops for this!).

All three are full term Bourbon cask matured and great examples of how lovely Caol Ila can be when well-aged.

Palate: Very rich and oily. Bitter oranges, poached pears, more cloudy apple juice, with a gentle woody smoke rising through the fruit.

Finish: Becomes waxy and spicy, with a Brazil nut undertone. Extraordinarily long and satisfying. Like a deep-muscle massage for your mind. It unlocks something in the brain that leads to fits of grinning, like some kind of serene whisky Nirvana.

Verdict: I love this whisky so much. A really active cask (I think a first fill) has given this a lot of punchy flavour. The citrus smoke element of Caol Ila has moved from lemon notes in the younger bottlings to orange and melon flavours. Utterly glorious.

Finish: Oak and black pepper with wafts of soft wood smoke and black tea. That Brazil nut taste is there again, too.

Verdict: Different to the 29. Still fruity and smoky but there’s none of that cloudy apple juice or pickle juice character. Still wonderfully balanced between the fruit and zesty smoke. Elegant, juicy, delicious.

Finish: Mellows after the peppery bite of the palate leaving a long and lingering taste of ripe pears and smooth, buttery oak.

Verdict: I think this one’s got a lot more tanin from the wood but it settles down nicely to a lovely and unusual finish. The 29 and 30 had more going on in the middle but this is all about the long end.

Summary

Three fabulous whiskies here – really showing off both what Caol Ila can do over time, and what good cask selection you see from WM Cadenhead.

For me, the winner’s got to be the 29 – that juicy, punchy, fruity quality is rowdy compared to the more elegant dust of the 30 and 31 but it absolutely charms my palate.

The lesson? Taste old Caol Ila as often as you can – the chances are that you’ll be delighted.

Here’s a little treat from Cadenhead’s… A peaty teenager from Islay. The 1994 vintage Ardbeg, aged for 13 years in a Bourbon barrel and bottled at cask strength.

Noteworthy because it was distilled while the distillery was owned by Hiram Walker. Glenmorangie bought Ardbeg in 1997, and their standard releases (except for Ardbeg 10) are typically now released without an age statement. Old Ardbeg tends to sell for a premium, so it’s nice to a) try spirit older than 10 years, and b) have a go with a bottling from the old regime.

I do like the modern Ardbeg expressions, but this is different – very mineral-rich, and more savoury and drying than the 10 year old, with subtle nuances (I think cask strength probably helps here…). I also reckon the lack of wine-cask means more flavour’s drawn from the barley and the oak.

I’m not sure if the Bourbon cask was a first-fill or not but I don’t get the typical whiff of vanilla, or the sweet spice. So I’m tempted to suggest the flavour comes from good spirit, good distillation, and good oak.

It’s good, of course – Ardbeg 10 is one of those Islay staple drams that’s consistently good quality. I think there’s a first-fill Bourbon influence – I get less barley flavour and more vanilla sugar. Also, the smoke is still coal-tar in nature but it’s less pronounced, and not as drying and the mineral notes are more in evidence as maritime/coastal scents.

So, is older Ardbeg better than modern Ardbeg? I think “better” is the wrong word…

It’s probably more in keeping with an older style of whisky production, which definitely gives it a big appeal. Modern whisky is often accused of being too heavily groomed and doctored to fit certain profiles that keep the market researchers happy.

Either way, it’s a pleasure to drink both of them. And I’ll be keeping an eye out for more old Ardbeg, provided it isn’t attached to a daft price tag.

I got my Ardbeg 1994 sample on WhiskySample.nl, but they’re all gone now. Keep an eye out on auction sites for older Ardbeg – you might get lucky with a sane price.

With my 29th birthday coming up, I couldn’t resist and bagged myself one of the last remaining bottles whereupon it sat on my shelf until I cracked it open in September. Now it’s down to the very last dram, I feel I need to mark its passing with a well-deserved closer inspection.

Caol Ila is something of a power-house distillery in an industrial-looking installation, which would be downright ugly if not for the incredible view over the Sound of Islay (where Caol Ila takes its name) towards the Paps of Jura, just a few miles away.

Their output is a heck of a lot bigger than every other distillery on Islay, and most of the spirit it produces will end up in Diageo’s blended whiskies. The malt itself is absolutely top-notch, though, and stands up very well by itself as a distillate. Even at very young ages, it’s remarkably well-made stuff.

Diageo certainly thought so in the seventies when they rebuilt the distillery to boost its output and by the eighties, with Caol Ila still going strong, they decided to mothball and eventually demolish the now infamous distillery at Port Ellen.

Having been lucky enough to try a couple of different official and indy bottlings of Port Ellen, I have to say that the flavour profile has a lot in common with Caol Ila. I don’t get the chamois leather with the latter, but there’s plenty of lemon sherbet, damp wood, sea shells and sea-spray.

In some ways, I see Caol Ila as the poor-man’s Port Ellen. No disservice intended there, but when an official bottling can set you back two-grand you’ve got to have a fat wallet to stand any chance of ever owning any.

Anyway, I digress. This whisky waited twenty-nine years in a barrel so I should do the polite thing and do some tasting…

Nose: The typical candied lemon and smoky peat you get with younger Caol Ila has really calmed down and grown up here. The volume of the music at the party’s been set to a mature, grown-up level. You can hear the conversation in the room now. I get sweet smoke, cloudy apple juice, paprika, Easter Egg chocolate, damp wood, tangerine and fresh honeydew melon.

Palate: Very rich and oily. Bitter oranges, poached pears, more cloudy apple juice, with a gentle woody smoke rising through the fruit.

Finish:Becomes waxy and spicy, with a Brazil nut undertone. Extraordinarily long and satisfying. Like a deep-muscle massage for your mind. It unlocks something in the brain that leads to fits of grinning, like some kind of serene whisky Nirvana*.

Wow… Wow.

Cadenhead are consistently bottling some excellent casks, with the Small Batch series being particularly tasty. This is a truly stunning bottling, at a very respectable price indeed.

Diageo have just released an official bottling of 30-year-old Caol Ila, which retails around £400 plus. This 29-year-old bottling was about a quarter of that price (sadly all gone now), and Cadenhead have a 30-year-old available (in limited numbers) in their Authentic range.

I’m not sure how much difference one year makes to the flavour profile of Caol Ila, but I’d guess it’ll be showing a lot of the same qualities. And with the Cadenhead bottling being so tasty at 29, I’m sure you can guess which bottling I’ll be drinking on my next birthday…

I will sincerely grieve the passing of this whisky, it’s absolutely fucking glorious. If you get chance to try some old Caol Ila, don’t pass it up. This stuff doesn’t just age with grace, this whisky is Stacey’s Mom – and my gosh, has she got it going on…

* The Buddhist kind, not the Seattle grunge group that Dave Grohl was stuck in before he started making proper music.